


Flying Without Wings

by Lire_Casander



Category: Hanson
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-05
Updated: 2013-09-05
Packaged: 2017-12-25 17:02:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/955569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lire_Casander/pseuds/Lire_Casander
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Who tells us who we can love? Who is the person that determines which ones are prohibited loves and which ones are allowed?</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flying Without Wings

Sometimes I wonder how my life would be if I hadn’t been so afraid. If I had been able to say what I thought instead of worrying about what the rest of the world would think. But I’m not, I can’t forget the rest of the world really exists and feels, and I can hurt with just a glance. Sometimes I wonder how my life would be if I had stopped being the one I am for a second and had been, only for a moment, who I want to be.

 

Everything in my life leads me to this moment. To this here, to this now, while I observe him swinging nervous on his heels in the altar. He waits for her. For that girl who has stolen his heart when I was unable to open mine. But it’s not worth crying now, it makes no sense. I was scared, that’s the truth. Me, the rock star, afraid of my feelings. But they’re not feelings for anyone, no, they’re the feelings I developed towards the only one I shouldn’t...

 

Who tells us who we can love? Who is the person that determines which ones are prohibited loves and which ones are allowed? It’s a question I keep asking myself for a long time, since I turned fifteen and I knew what I felt was not normal. But, again, who is the one to say what’s normal and what’s not? I guess that my mother would say it’s God, but long ago I decided not to believe in him. If God existed, wouldn’t he have to be all love and understanding? Then, why what I feel is not accepted, is not understood? The only logical conclusion I arrived to at my moments of confusion was that he couldn’t exist. And although today I have smoothed my ideas, I keep thinking that no higher power would have allowed us to suffer the way we suffered. So I have ended up believing in Devil.

 

Something that perhaps you would have to know about me is that I ramble. So I hope that you forgive to me if I keep on doing it aytime, as I will.

 

The first time I knew what I felt was the day that I turned fifteen. That March 14 seems so far away now and nevertheless it’s the closest we’ve been to disaster and happiness. They were good years, those of Middle Of Nowhere, those of hysterical fans and massive interviews. The years when Zac and I were so close that nothing or nobody could separate to us. Nothing or nobody... but ourselves. 

 

Things have been getting worse from that day with the passing years. Zac has been falling apart from me, we have lost the bond we had when we were teenagers, but we have always been brothers. Yes, you have read correctly. Brothers. Now it’s the time when you think this is gross, but it no longer matters. Nothing matters because he is going to leave to me for her... for her.

 

It’s my fault, it will always be mine. But I’m not going to let it dim his happiness today. Wait a moment, happiness? What happiness, when he swore that he would never be happy without me? That he would always love me? How could I forget that? I watch him a second before finding tears in his eyes when he looks at me straight through the maze of people who separates us. Something inside forces me to stand up and come to his side, he needs me, me, his older brother. Although we have not been only brothers for years, I never wanted to break that bond. He is the only thing I have for sure in this life; whatever happens, Hanson will always be stronger. 

  

He looks at me silentily while I squeeze his hand the moment I arrive at his side. He doesn’t break our contact. A single tear rolls down his cheek, and I feel I’m dying by only seeing it. He is my life, and I am seeing him coming undone little by little, before my own eyes, without being able to make a thing to avoid it. Can I do something?

 

"Taylor...", my name sounds broken in his lips, and my heart hurts at his pain. 

 

"Tell me what you want from me, Zac", I whisper, looking at the ground, "Tell me what you want and I’ll do it" 

 

"Would you play for us today? While she enters the church, would you play a song?" 

 

Would I play a song? I don’t know what he’s thinking about, but he can’t ask me for anything more difficult. In spite of my reluctance, I nod. 

 

"Which one do you want me to play?" 

 

"Anything. It doesn’t matter if you have to sing too. Just play the one that seems more suitable to you "

 

"A funeral composition, then", I joke, but he knows it’s not a joke. He knows I am dying inside, little by little, while seeing him giving himself completely to her, 

 

"It was a joke, just a joke. I think I already know what I’m going to play"

 

He nods and he lets me go, loosening my hand that held him. I go to the piano and I sit down. The jacket bothers me, I pull it off and I sit again. The white keys wait for me, my head spins and I only listen to his voice saying that he loved me. Past tense. "He doesn’t love me anymore", I think sadly, "But I can make him remember forever that what we had was real and that I still feel it. That I’m sorry to have let him go"

 

I know that I still have a while until she enters the church, the brides always arrive late. I let my mind return to the past, when Zac and I were happy... together. 

 

_It took me a lot to discover that what I felt was not normal. It wasn’t normal to watch my brother and notice my heart was filled. So many times I wished to kiss his smooth crystal lips, his eyelids hiding those chocolate eyes. So many times I had problems hiding my own reactions to his only presence. Zac was only twelve when I realized I was falling in love with him, and I didn’t want to scare him. I was aware that if somebody found out what I thought, it would be the end of everything. The end of Hanson, my family, everything I loved. I couldn’t let it happen, so I began denying reality._

 

The keys keep attiring my attention while I try to exactly remember the notes of the song I want to play. It’s a melody I’m sure Zac remembers. I have been able to almost read it in his eyes, he wanted that song, exactly that one. The one that brings so many memories to us. I shake my head and I return to my past, to my memories. To the day I felt I was brave for the first time.

 

_He was laying back down in his bed, watching at the ceiling with tears in his eyes. That night, I had made public my fiancée, the alibi I had so the world believed I wasn’t a pervert, was pregnant. That baby was not mine though, both of us knew, but I was going to take the responsibility of him because it was what everyone wanted me to do. This is me, fucking Taylor-Responsible-Hanson._

 

_When I told them during dinner, everyone looked overwhelmed. But Zac was the only one who showed it. He wasn’t overwhelmed, he was hurt. He jumped off the table without having eaten his dessert and left the kitchen running towards his room. Almost immediately I left behind him, to end up outside his closed door and the sound of a drowned sob inside the room. I knocked smoothly and, when he didn’t asnwer, I entered without a noise. And I saw him._

 

  
_Fallen on his bed, with tears in his eyes. He was seventeen, he haven’t cried for a while, but at that moment he was on the verge of doing it. And I had the feeling it was my fault. I sat by his side and caressed his shoulder. My ears filled with notes of the song that blasted through the stereo._ Flying Without Wings _._  


 

_"Zac, what happens?"_

 

_"Go away", was everything what I obtained from him._

 

_"Come on, Zac, tell me what happens. Have I made anything that bad?", I asked trying not to approach too much to him so that he did not notice anything rare._

 

_"You dare to ask it to me!", he shouted suddenly, "You... you dare to ask it... to me? It’s not enough..."_

 

_"I don’t understand anything you’re saying, Zac. Is this because of Natalie? Because she is pregnant?"_

 

_"What do you think, Tay? How could you? After all... after everything we have been together, you are going to throw everything away for a girl? What’s going to happen with Hanson?"_

 

_My eyes filled with tears. He was sad because he thought Hanson was going to disappear or something like that because of me. I rolled down to his side and passed an arm over his waist. He didn’t scoot away, which gave me enough energy to approach a little more to him._

 

_"Hanson is not going to disappear, if that’s what you worry about, Zac", I whispered, "I am not going to let it happen, and you know it. But I must do what I must do, if that makes any sense. I must marry her, Zac, it is my responsibility"_

 

_"No, it’s not! It has never been! You can’t love her!"_

 

_"What? Of course I love her”, I lied stubbornly._

 

_"She doesn’t love you then!", he screamed, "I am sure the baby is not yours! Taylor, I saw her with another boy, kissing him in the street! She’s cheating on you, and you’re not even able to see it"_

 

_I almost cracked down with laughter then, but I could hold it inside on time. It couldn’t be... He had seen them together?_

 

_"Zac, let me tell you one thing", I sighed, getting so close that I had my face in the crook of his neck, "I already knew it, you know? The baby is not mine, that is true, but everybody will think that it is "_

 

_"And why are you going to marry her if the baby is not yours? And how on Earth did you already know it?"_

 

_He turned to watch me instead of the ceiling, and his beautiful chocolate eyes sank in mine; I felt I drowned in them, my heart jumping in my chest, the feeling of it going to leave me to throw itself to the only person to whom it belonged was difficult to keep inside. I couldn’t answer immediately, the tears bathing his eyes were too powerful._

 

_"Tay", he asked stuttering._

 

_"I know it because Natalie is only my alibi, Zac, the person who covers for me. It has always been like that, and it seems to be always this way. I am going to marry her, and you know I don’t believe in divorce"_

 

_"But why do you need an alibi? Come on, Taylor, explain it to me. Why?"_

 

_"Because...", I couldn’t say the truth, I feared his reaction, so I lied a little, "... I’m gay, Zac. And that..."_

 

_" Gay? You are gay!" , he looked at me with eyes wide open, without blinking, "It’s not possible"_

 

_"I know it sounds horrible, I know it, but that’s how I feel. And in order to not hurt anybody, because Hanson is a symbol and the family doesn’t think that this is a feeling and not a disease, I decided to hide it. Zac, I am the same... "_

 

_"It doesn’t matter you are gay", he  said with a smile through the tears that finally had left his pupils, "That gives you a reason for not marrying her, Taylor. I don’t believe Natalie wants  to marry you either, she must be in love with that boy..."_

 

_"And what do you suggest we do? Tell the whole family?", I watched him in the eyes defiantly, I didn’t want to make it public, because one thing would lead to the other and I didn’t feel strong enough to hide my true feelings._

 

_"No, it’s not necessary... so far. Can I ask you something?"_

 

_He was now looking me in the eye. His face was a few inches from mine, and I could feel his warm breath in my nose. We made a strange vision to see, laying on his bed, face to face, watching each other without saying a thing. I inhaled and nodded._

 

_"Who is he?"_

 

_“What?"_

 

_"Nobody realizes their sexual orientation until they fall in love, Taylor. So tell me, who is he?"_

 

_I panicked for a second, I couldn’t lie to him, Zac knew me better than anybody else; the spark in his eyes urged me to say the truth, but the truth was perhaps too twisted to be said aloud. I shook my head._

 

_"No, Zac, don’t make me..."_

 

_"Tell me, please! I promise you I won’t tell anybody"_

 

_"No, Zac, it’s something I won’t be able to tell. But now, it doesn’t matter anymore, he doesn’t love me back, so"_

 

_"Are you sure?", his glance settled amused in mine, "Taylor, who hasn’t been in love with the Hanson chick?_

 

_"If you begin with that Hanson chick thing..."_

 

_"I mean, come on, Tay, everyone has been in love with you sometime. I don’t think that...”_

 

_I couldn’t fight it back anymore. He was so close, his whispers were so seductive, I couldn’t help it and I kissed him. Thus, immediately, I leaned forward and smoothly I kissed his caramel lips. It was a simple rubbing, but it arose goosebumps on my skin._

 

_When I broke the kiss, he smiled and looked away sadly to hide the tears that, nevertheless, I had seen again._

 

_"I’m sorry", I whispered, "I’m so sorry..."_

 

_"You don’t have to be sorry..., Taylor...", I did not hear what he was saying, or if I listened to it I did not process it, because I kept begging for his pardon in a low voice._

 

_"I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m..."_

 

_Then he interrupted me. He kissed me harder. I couldn’t believe it, Zac was kissing me, he was kissing me! I embraced him, not wanting to lose him again. That one was the first of many shared nights together, of many kisses and whispers that said what we felt._

 

_"I love you"_

 

Needless to say, I did not marry Natalie. She flew with the father of her baby, and now they are happily married and she raises up a pair of toddlers. I convinced my parents that being gay was not a sin, that they had to accept me being like that at least because I am their son and they do love me. And then... when everything made sense, I spoiled it all. 

 

Zac wanted to make public our relationship. But I knew that it was not possible, what would have the world thought of us? A simple rubbing in public, and everything we had built would have sunk like a castle of sand. So I refused, and Zac got upset. We argued violently and he left. That was two years ago, the day we celebrated our third anniversary. And since then, seven hundred thirty days of painful forgetfulness. Hardly I have seen him, and the couple of times we’ve been together, at Christmas, it has been a horrible nightmare. 

 

_First Christmas I saw him again, it had been  a month since I moved out from the family house to a small apartment in the center of Tulsa. My parents had been against it, but I stuck to my guns and left; I couldn’t stand seeing Zac wandering through the house without seeing me, without speaking to me._

 

_When he appeared in the hall, smiling in a black suit, my heart skipped a beat. But almost immediately it stopped beating at all, when he waved a hand in the air and a blonde blue-eyed girl entered the room following the movement. I know my parents didn’t understand a thing about it, but it was clear for me. Looking at that chick was like looking at myself in the mirror. So I told him a little later when we were left together, alone, in the living room, against his will of course._

 

_"You don’t have the tiniest idea, Taylor!", he exclaimed, "Now you want to know how I feel? How I have gotten over you? Now that you have seen that I am able to move along without you!"_

 

_"You know that I didn’t mean that, Zac"_

 

_"No, Taylor, I no longer know a thing that has to do with you. It’s over, you decided it had to be finished when you didn’t dare to take the next step!"_

 

_"Zac, please, listen to me..."_

 

_"I don’t want to! You ruined it all, I don’t want to speak with you! Jesus, I don’t even want to fucking look at you!"_

 

_Next Christmas, Zac announced his wedding with Kaythleen, the blonde chick. And I had not talked to him in all that time._

 

The keys still keep all my attention when I hear Zac’s voice whispering at my back. 

 

"Taylor, are you going to play the song?" 

 

"Yes, lil bro, I’m going to play it" 

 

"Don’t call me ‘lil bro’ , I’ve not been your brother for a while" 

 

"I know it, and I’m really sorry about that...” 

  

He gets away from me and my fingers slip through the smooth white keys until they find the note they were looking for. They press the surface distrustingly. I shake my head. I can’t do it, it’s too hard. Zac is going to get married, I can’t play our song in his wedding. I can’t play our song, it wouldn't be fair. 

 

In this time I haven’t even tried to find another one. Nobody can take his place. I have come alone to his wedding, pathetically left to my luck. I deserve it, I know. But that knowledge doesn’t lighten the pain in my chest. 

 

She is standing at the bottom of the church, at the end of the rose-framed corridor. My eyes fill of tears again, but this time I don’t do a thing to avoid tem rolling down my cheeks. It’s a desperate move, but that’s the only thing I can do to show him that I will always be by his side, come what may. Even if he is married. 

 

Finally, I get to take some notes out of the piano, and the smooth melody of _Flying Without Wings_ fills the air. For three minutes, everything remains silent, the only things to be heard are the sound of the piano and the heels of Kaythleen picking on the ground while she comes near to the altar. And with the last words, _You’re the place my life begins, and you’ll be where it ends_ , I let an audible sob out and I stand up suddenly. 

 

"... I’m sorry... I can’t... sorry... ", I repeat, "... I'm sorry, Zac...”

 

I leave the church shaking from the sobs and the tears, sure to have lost him. Hardly I hear my mother saying "Taylor, wait, you can’t go away yet, you still have a lot to say before he marries her", what is she saying? I shake my head and I follow my way in tears. I drop myself in the front seat of  my car without looking back. I know my suitcase is in the trunk, ready to be with me in my trip to nowhere. It was decided even before Zac asked me to sing in his wedding, my parents knew that. They knew that I’d go away. Hanson was broken when I decided to be a  coward, Isaac didn’t even seem to bother. Now I don’t have anything left, and when Zac pronounces the magical words, I will have even less. 

 

Ten hours later, I end in a filthy roadside motel without knowing how I have done it. It was my destiny, a city of hardly two thousand inhabitants in the middle of the desert. But I don’t want to be here, I don’t want to. I get a room and I leave the suitcase on the ground as I enter in it. Slowy I am dropping next to it, and I drown in my own tears. I don’t know for how long I’ve cried until my cell begins to ring. I flip it open without checking the caller ID. 

 

"Yeah?", I ask in a low voice. 

 

"Taylor, it’s me" 

 

"I thought you didn’t want to talk to me, Zac, I’m going to hang up" 

 

"Talk to me, please" 

 

"I don’t want to..." 

  

"Where are you? Tell me where you are, Taylor"

 

"What for? You aren’t going to come after me, Zac, I lost that privilege long ago"

 

"You are drunk" 

 

I don’t answer him and I switch my cell close. To my own bad luck, I am not drunk. But when I throw the damn thing at the wall, I hear knocks on the door. Thinking it’s the room service, I open without asking. 

 

Zac’s in front of me. Still dressed in his wedding tux, his hands shaking. How has he arrived here in such a short time? Why  doesn’t he hold a ring in his hand? He watches me observing him and smiles sadly waving his fingers in the air. 

 

"I told you to talk to me" 

 

"I don’t deserve to speak to you", I bend my head and I let tears flow freely. He slips a hand under my chin and forces me to watch him in the eye. I only see a blurred spot before me. But he continues his talk. 

 

"I am the one who doesn’t deserve to speak to you, not even to be in front of you begging... begging... you to forgive me... The song..." 

 

"Zac..." 

 

He doesn’t give me time to react. He immediately takes me in his strong arms and holds me against his chest. I hear his heart beating like so many other times, for me. My tears are wetting his white shirt. 

 

"I had forgotten how good it felt being in your arms...”, I nearly choke. 

 

"Shhh", he cooes me smoothly, "Don’t think about it, I’m here, I’m not going to leave..." 

 

"But... what about your wife?" 

 

"I haven’t married her, Tay" 

 

"Why?", I ask, raising my head. 

 

"Isn’t it evident? You are the place where my life begins, the place where it ends. I can’t... continue life without you, no matter how hard I try. And believe me, I’ve tried... If you don’t want me back, that’s fine... But let me hold you in my arms once again"

 

I watch him astonished while his words sink in me. Is he saying he wants to try again? That he isn’t married... because of me? Does this song have that power?

 

"How have you known where I was?", I ask in a low voice. 

 

"Mom told me. She... kinda knew from the beginning... She only wants our happiness... wherever it is... wherever we’re accepted..." 

 

I smile through my tears and send a virtual hug to my mother. She knows us deeply, and she knows we weren’t happy being apart. We aren’t gross, we aren’t sinners... 

 

He leans slowly towards me, as he is taller than me. He stops a few inches above my lips, shaking. 

 

"I love you", he says so quietly I hardly hear him. 

 

"I love you too. With all my soul. I have never stopped loving you"

 

We embrace in an everlasting kiss, his lips pressed against mine in a second that lasts a whole life. Now I know what it is to be flying without wings. 

 

Now I know where I belong. Now I know Zac is the one I want to spend the rest of my life with... and I don’t care who knows it.


End file.
